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Topic: Glass Animals (lampwork) (Read 5271 times)

I've got a home made glass animal! It's a little lampwork 'Dragon' which my husband made in the kitchen! I don't think it's got the right number of legs, or eyes, or that it looks much like a dragon (which he assured me it was!) but it was a real labour of lurve, and I treasure it http://tinypic.com/2d73ev<--- Mod: Link deadOK, OK, I'm sorry, I'll go!

Adam, having worked in labs, the biggest flask I used was 5 litres! 200 sounds totally unwieldy! (Sorry, got 'flu, feeling rotten). I have to confess a love of the volumetric flask shape, and have a few art glass bottles in that shape, of varying quality. (I keep them in the kitchen, my current "lab"). Shall post some pictures, sometime soon.I had a 2litre flask size, in a lovely olivey green, I think it might have been Galaskruf, but my other half dropped a copper lobster bottle opener on it. Sigh :cry:

At an antiquey fair in Perth, a couple of years ago, I met David Smith, who had spent 23 years as head lampworker at Perthshire Paperweights, but following their closure, was trying to make ends meet, having opened his own workshop in Perth, making lovely little glass birds and animals, very detailed. I don't know what he's doing now, I still have his details .The birds and animals were beautiful (but I have to confess, I was not taken with the stained agate plinths, just one of my no-no's)Cheers, Sue.

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Cheers, Sue (M)"The really smart people know enough to know that there's too much that they don't know for them to be arrogant about the little they do know." Prof. Ron Davis OMF

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Some of the nicest lampwork I have seen (outside of a paperweight) is by David and Wendy Pryce-Jones of The Glassblobbery - http://www.glassblobbery.com David is the flame-worker and Wendy is a glass-stainer. The irridescent colours in their work are fantastic! :shock:

I have two pieces by them, but one is badly broken :cry: (cats :evil: ) and even the other, shown here: http://tinypic.com/2d7vjc<--- Mod: Link dead has had a reed broken off (cats again :roll: ) which I am waiting for a sunny day to glue.

Still beautiful in spite of the damage, IMHO ( see thread on chips, etc. :wink: )

I like the name Glassblobbery. Reminds more of my recent laymens post on glassmaking using blobs :lol: Sadly, they do not accept cash payments over £10,000

A Pirelli Kanagaroo just sold on eBay with a retail price ticket of 17 bob about 1.20 in real money. Not much today but quite expensive in the 50's to 60's when it was sold. Presumably the lampworker would have received 20%-40% of that per piece so quite lucrative. By contrast Lausch's web shop offer most of their lampwork in the range o 5 - 20 a piece and style is not wildly different from Pirelli. The blobbery work is very elaborate by comparison and their price range is £7 - £65 (10-90).

I find it fascinating that so much energy is invested in this area by glassmakers and collectors but until now has been hardly mentioned in these forums. My original teasing thread title (time to come out) was designed to encourage people to admit to owning these and as so many responded I changed it to a more sedate title.

A lot of 50's lampwork on eBay is Japanese so it would seem to be quite a large global sub-industry... with the advantage of needing minimal equipment. The Russians and Chinese are also making a lot now.

Sklounion

Lamp-work items also came from Czechoslovakia, particularly from the Zelezny Brod Glassworks, Jaroslav Brychta and Jan Cerny being two of the high-profile designers, and lamp-working was taught at the Industrial school there.

Allegedly, the "dachshund peeing on a lamp-post" figure, was a 3-dimensional irreverance toward T.G. Masaryk, first president of the Czechoslovakian Republic, and well-known dachshund owner.

Marcus

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My only lampwork pieces are two sets of earrings made by a man in Brighton (I don't know his name. I do now: Bill Axel) who used to have a shop in (what my late ex-mother-in-law used to call) the top of the town. One is a pair of dark purple (almost black) cats which swing from one paw and which were a regular line for him. The other is a pair of snowmen which the said ex-MIL asked him to make specially for me, and he did. Both pairs attract considerable attention whenever I wear them! Not old, but date from c.1990-ish.

Oh, and I have a tiny lavender elephant my mother brought back from Italy in the 1980's... there was a mother elephant and three young but they were so tiny and suffered the ravages of time and moving house, etc. I think the mother is still intact but the babies lost ears and legs over the years. She watched them be made and then bought them for me.

At an antiquey fair in Perth, a couple of years ago, I met David Smith, who had spent 23 years as head lampworker at Perthshire Paperweights, but following their closure, was trying to make ends meet, having opened his own workshop in Perth, making lovely little glass birds and animals, very detailed. I don't know what he's doing now

I've got loads gathering dust on my mantlepiece - they go for nothing, so I tend to keep them and give them to the children from time to time.

None of them have three colour eyes though :-(

On the subject, how can you tell Murano ones from Eastern European ones does anyone know? Is there a relatively easy way or is it just another area where you just sort of KNOW after handling loads of them?